A Recruiter’s Guide to Attract & Retain Millennials

Tomorrow’s workforce won’t just include millennials; it will be dominated by them. By 2025, it’s projected that millennials will comprise three-fourths of the workforce. However, every generation makes up the majority of the workforce at some point. What makes the millennial workforce different? The millennial cohort is significantly larger than previous generations, and has unique career preferences and ambitions. As the millennial workforce grows, companies will need to change their recruitment strategies to stay competitive.

One of this generation’s notable characteristics is its increased willingness to make career changes. Eighty-three percent of millennials are willing to relocate for the right job that provides them with a higher salary or better advancement opportunities: by the age of 30, millennials have almost twice as many job and organizational changes as Gen Xers, and almost three times as many job changes as the baby boomers and Matures.

Why should recruiters care? Fifty-three percent of hiring managers surveyed said they have difficulty finding and retaining millennials. Approximately one-third of companies lost 15 percent or more of their millennial employees in 2015. Finding ways to better attract and retain millennials is crucial for organizational success, especially as millennials will leave if they’re not satisfied. Forty-three percent of millennials were actively searching for a new job in 2015.

You can attract more millennials by forgetting the stereotypes and focusing on aspects millennials see as important to their careers: stability, financial security, and collaboration. Furthermore, to motivate millennials to accept a job, three factors are highlighted: compensation packages, professional development, and opportunities for advancement.

Offering the right candidate experience through mindful and crafted social media presence and a personalized, information, and convenient interviewing experience will further entice millennial jobseekers. The employer brand is more valuable than ever before, as millennials also care about a company’s values and its ability to do good in the world more than any other generation.

To retain millennials, focus on feedback, growth, and opportunity. Millennials take their careers seriously and value honest, frequent feedback from managers. Feedback nurtures growth, which millennials also highly value. Work-life balance is also high on the millennial wish list; with 38 percent of U.S. millennials saying they would move to another country with better parental leave benefits, 57 percent stating they would leave a job that doesn’t provide the work-life balance they want, and 1/3 saying that managing their work, family, and personal responsibilities has become more difficult in the last five years.

When asked “if you were able to choose your manager, which of the following would be most important to you?” the top response of U.S. millennials was: empowers their employees. Millennials want to empower others; 40 percent said it was their biggest motivator to become a leader.